home alone

Two days off work - a mid-week weekend, if you will - and I am having a wonderful time. You see here that I made the best of a guilty scoot round H&M's home department. The pseudo-rustic little bags charmed themselves home with me and it didn't take me long to put them to a good use, to whit: holding 4 or 5 different bags of flour on the top shelf (the naughty shelf, as in a newsagent, dedicated here to baking goods), and containing a several half-finished bags of rice and pulses on the bottom shelf.

After a shuffle-tidy I felt as if this had actually been a virtuous move. Note the famous nutmeg enjoying its bamboo throne on the middle shelf!

Oh dear, and here is evidence of my less-virtuous side when home alone: lunch for one. I was ravenous after a morning swim so had an early lunch. Broccoli and stilton soup straight from the saucepan with some bread; the extra delicacy you espy is a cold sausage with mustard. If I'm to be honest, a completely blasted, burnt stump of a sausage. I know it is a bad craftsman who blames his tools, but before this oven I'm sure I never managed to burn a sausage: I couldn't have done that if I had tried!

I won't be snobbish about shop-bought soup as it is really handy and I just love the pea and ham from *ahem* Waitrose. This broccoli and stilton soup reminded me how very lovely my own version is, too: I'll add a note to my 'foods to cook' list and make it soon.